Verizon Buys CloudSwitch to Boost Hybrid Clouds

Verizon Communications continues to build its cloud services through acquisitions. Verizon said today that it has bought CloudSwitch, whose software makes it easier for enterprises to build hybrid clouds in which virtual machines can move between data centers and cloud platforms.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Verizon plans to combine CloudSwitch with Terremark, which it bought for $1.4 billion earlier this year. Verizon said the addition of CloudSwitch technology will further accelerate its cloud strategy by enhancing Verizon’s hybrid cloud and cloud-to-cloud capabilities.

"The cloud market is a rapidly growing opportunity, with very real benefits both for our business customers and the consumers they serve," said Bob Toohey, president of Verizon’s global enterprise unit. "With the acquisition of CloudSwitch, Verizon has taken another step forward in defining the enterprise cloud."

CloudSwitch Enterprise is a downloadable software appliance that installs easily into VMware and Xen environments. Customers can move Windows and Linux virtual machines to the Amazon EC2 and Terremark clouds, and run their applications in the cloud using existing management and monitoring tools.

“By joining Verizon, we will be able to deliver a solution that combines our software with the market-leading infrastructure cloud play," said John McEleney, CEO of CloudSwitch. "Our founding vision has always been to create a seamless and secure federation of cloud environments across enterprise data centers and global cloud services. This will go a long way in helping achieve widespread adoption of the cloud especially when managing complex workloads.”

In a blog post, McEleney said the CloudSwitch team would remain in Boston. "We’ve been at the forefront of cloud innovation since 2008, and this begins a new chapter for us as we team with Terremark to take enterprise-class services to the next level," he wrote. "We’ve been working together with Terremark for almost two years and have built great relationships with Verizon and Terremark, based on our hands-on experience with the Terremark clouds. It’s clear that F1000 companies are looking for enterprise-class cloud services that cover a broad range of their needs – not only commodity clouds, but also higher levels of SLAs, enterprise procurement processes, professional services, security models and dedicated systems. And they want these to be provided by a trusted name in enterprise IT services like Verizon."